Wood’s stellar effort helps S.F. avoid sweep
Giants’ win boosts NL West lead on secondplace Dodgers to 11⁄2 games
Alex Wood said after his previous start that he likes to be the stopper, the pitcher who comes in after a loss or two and turns things around.
He keeps getting the chance lately. The lefty ended the Giants’ seasonhigh fourgame losing streak last week, then Wednesday, he salvaged the final game of San Francisco’s series against the Cardinals by allowing one run in seven innings to help the Giants come away with a 52 victory at Oracle Park.
With the Dodgers’ loss to
Miami, San Francisco’s lead in the NL West increased to 11⁄2 games.
Wood didn’t allow more than two runs in any of his first seven starts, and, with his slider back, he hasn’t given up more than two in any of his past three outings, allowing 11 hits, six walks and striking out 22 in 171⁄3 innings while putting up an 2.08 ERA. Wednesday, it was his sinker that was his top pitch, with four swingsandmisses and 18 called strikes.
The Giants did have a concerning development despite the win: One of their key addi
tions, LaMonte Wade Jr., left in the sixth with a left hand strain. Wade has turned himself into a nearregular with Brandon Belt (knee) on the injured list, and he had a very active fifth. He went between his legs to field a bouncer by Andrew Knizner and tossed to Wood for the out; had his toe spiked when covering the bag on the next play; and made a nice stretch, keeping his foot on the bag while hauling in a throw from Brandon Crawford. He also walked twice and scored a run.
Wood didn’t have robust backing. The Giants did little with men in scoring position again, getting their first run when Jason Vosler was hit with the bases loaded in the first — after Alex Dickerson had struck out and Crawford had popped up.
The next inning, Curt Casali doubled to lead things off, and with two outs, Mike Yastrzemski doubled him in. Moments later, Yastrzemski and St. Louis starter Johan Oviedo had a little contretemps, with Oviedo turning and clearly shouting “shut the fup” at Yastrzemski. Oviedo had just been examining a card telling him the sign changes with a runner at second, and it’s possible Yastrzemski had expressed impatience with that. Or perhaps it could have been just the ageold pitcher concern over the potential for the runner to signal pitch location to the hitter.
The Giants were 2for9 with men in scoring position in the fifth when Donovan Solano stepped up with two on and delivered an RBI pinchhit double with one out. But Steven Duggar struck out, and after a walk to Casali, Wood struck out.
Tyler Rogers began the eighth for San Francisco and got in a sticky situation, with Paul Goldschmidt sending in a run with a base hit. That brought up Giants nemesis supreme Nolan Arenado with two on and one out. Rogers got Arenado, a lifetime .296 hitter with 32 homers and 107 RBIs against the Giants, to bounce into a double play.
Darin Ruf, who took over at first when Wade came out, blasted a tworun homer to dead center in the eighth to provide a little more cushion. The team has hit at least one homer in 18 of the past 21 games at Oracle Park.
San Francisco finished 3for15 with men in scoring position and the team is batting .179 in those situations over the past 10 games.
Dickerson, the Giants’ cleanup man more often than not against righthanded starters, is among those who’ve had their struggles coming through in the clutch with just two RBIs — both on homers — since coming off the IL on June 21. Manager Gabe Kapler has said several times recently that he likes to bat Dickerson at the start of a run of lefthanded hitters — Wednesday, it went Dickerson, Crawford and Vosler — because he’ll usually pinch hit for Dickerson when a lefty reliever comes in. That, in turns, puts a pinch hitter in a spot to potentially do some damage, with Crawford to follow.
“It's not about the best hitters hit highest in the order,” Kapler said, emphasizing that Dickerson knows he’ll get hit for against lefthanders. “I think you know that if that was the main consideration, we would write the lineup differently.”